{"id":109495,"date":"2025-10-08T19:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T19:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/109495\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T19:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T19:33:11","slug":"germany-projects-a-sliver-of-growth-betting-on-merzs-e500bn-overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/109495\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany projects a sliver of growth, betting on Merz\u2019s \u20ac500bn overhaul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>  By&amp;nbsp<a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/profiles\/3408\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Una Hajdari<\/a>&amp;nbspwith&amp;nbsp<b>AP<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\n         Published on<br \/>\n            08\/10\/2025 &#8211; 16:17 GMT+2\n            <\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-ad__placeholder__logo\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\" width=\"72\" height=\"72\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n          ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Germany&#8217;s new government said on Wednesday it expects Europe&#8217;s biggest economy to see minimal growth of 0.2% this year, with a forecast for 1.3% growth next year and 1.4% in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Berlin\u2019s new forecast \u2014 a near stall \u2014 projects a limp outlook for the country and raises the stakes for Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s plan to pour \u20ac500 billion into infrastructure, promise faster investment approvals, and boost digitalisation.<\/p>\n<p>The outcome matters well beyond Germany, and will influence European demand, supply-chain resilience, and the continent\u2019s ability to compete with the US and China.<\/p>\n<p>This is despite the fact that the outlook for 2025 is slightly higher than the previous government&#8217;s forecast in late April for zero growth this year, expanding to 1% in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The German economy has shrunk for the past two years and has not seen significant growth for much longer. Merz\u2019s government has made revitalising it a priority since taking office in early May.<\/p>\n<p>Germany needed growth yesterday<\/p>\n<p>Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said in a statement that \u201cwe need to act, now\u201d on competitiveness and innovation. <\/p>\n<p>She noted that a significant part of the expected growth will come from plans for increased government spending, and even that will only be effective if investments are made quickly \u2014 requiring fast planning and approval processes, something that Germany has so far lagged on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo secure long-term growth, we must end the reform backlog \u2014 reduce energy costs, foster private investment, address the tax burden that is high by international standards, dismantle bureaucracy, open markets and enable innovation,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>Merz&#8217;s government has launched a programme to encourage investment and set up a fund to pour money into Germany\u2019s creaking infrastructure over the next 12 years. He also promised to cut red tape and speed up the country\u2019s lagging digitalisation.<\/p>\n<p>A group comprising dozens of companies pledged in July to invest at least \u20ac631bn in Germany over the next three years, a figure that included some previously planned investments but was designed to send a signal of confidence in the economy.<\/p>\n<p>Germany for years expanded exports and dominated world trade in engineered products like industrial machinery and luxury cars. <\/p>\n<p>But it has suffered from increasing competition from Chinese companies, along with many other factors that have increased risks, including US President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs and trade threats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By&amp;nbspUna Hajdari&amp;nbspwith&amp;nbspAP Published on 08\/10\/2025 &#8211; 16:17 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT Germany&#8217;s new government said on Wednesday it expects Europe&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,2784,179,18,68260,6621,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-109495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economic-growth","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-german-economy","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}